Uh oh. Them’s fighting words Michael! (Takes Harry Potter books and walks off in a huff muttering about the fairies of consciousness)

Seriously, though, I love the idea you came up with, thanks for posting it!

Sorry, maybe I should have used the word mysterious (more in keeping with the topic).

“That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” (The first article of the Virginia Declaration of Rights adopted unanimously by the Virginia Convention of Delegates on June 12, 1776)

My bet is that his “indirect” is based on virtual particles. Virtual particles cannot be observed or tested for, but they are a mathematical neccesity for some physics theories, and those theories have succesful predictions. Either way, what i wrote in the other topic about math is true here. Math is conceptual, concepts are thoughts, and thoughts are had by a thinking being. Michael Keans “indirect” should therefore always be considered synonymous with “consciousness”, even though he wont agree with that.

Just wondering about a couple of things - I don’t know if this is a question you could answer at this point, but curious about your speculations on the “what” and “where” for the indirect element.

Where: Without getting into anything magical or mysterious, I guess what I’m wondering here is “where” consciousness would be in this model? Does it have a real location, or no? In this model do we really exist “in” our heads and bodies? Where does the indirect side reside in space-time?

The simple answer from particle physics would be that the indirect particles lay in between the direct particles: They mediate the interactions or forces between the direct particles after all. But some of those interactions (indirect particles) can interact with direct particles in such a way as to cause, for instance, every single particle in our galaxy to organise around its ‘local’ black hole core (or be swallowed by that core). In another stratum indirect particles can also locally ‘organise’ or ‘self-restrain’ say laminar flow in a pipe of water or a vein of blood. How would they do this without a store or memory of codes like in a computer program or genetic code? I suspect there must also be a kind of real-time, self-locating feedback mechanism from the direct particles back to the indirect particles that reflects as and when some level of equilibrium or homeostasis is achieved (and some level of asymmetry remains) between the direct (matter) and indirect (space/time) of each sticky string (and sticky system). This way the ‘laws’ are both self-contained and self-organising within the direct-indirect system. We might see this temporal equilibrium in the direct world in the settling of a passing star into a smooth orbit around a new galactic core.

BTW the indirect laws only appear to be constant because a certain level and kind of dynamic equilibrium has been reached between the direct and indirect - like diamonds are more enduring or constant than detergent bubbles (Do we know a law of bubble forming & bursting? Probably not, but we are both probably vaguely aware of the ‘law’ at work in diamonds - i.e. the very stable lattice network of carbon atoms involved. This perhaps demonstrates how we pick & choose heuristics to organise our worlds. The more temporal and less relevant “laws” to our survival, such as how laminar flow changes into turbulent flow or how bubbles form & burst, we probably tend to ignore. In the past we have also tended to ignore the laws that are more probabilistic or chaotic or non-linear in their operation, such as the point at which turbulent flow breaks out).

So likewise consciousness can maybe be seen as “discrete” indirect particles that somehow mediate conscious interactions between otherwise disconnected direct brain particles or maybe it can be seen to organise all brain structures around an emerging idea (such as Xmas) or a stratum of an idea (such as the correct grammatical use of Xmas in a sentence). I know this is vague, but thank you for making me think about this really difficult question. The ‘hard problem’ is the apparent disconnect between the direct and indirect that I am saying, according to particle physics, is not disconnected. And in fact, according to QM’s Uncertainty Principle, this connection is characterised by a bubbling caldron of what seems superfluous & fleeting particles as well as those particles that actually achieve something (in mediating interactions or in representing matter). (Seems a bit like all the unnecessary data we see in genetic material as well. Is there an Uncertainty Principle operating in genomes as well?)

We roughly know how the physical brain works and maybe also how it evolved, but it’s how this physical stuff is represented informationally (non-physically) that is the difficult part. For instance, like all self-organising systems, the brain requires some kind of dissonance to trigger it into action. This dissonance comes to its inputs from the external environment and from its own outputs. There are then structures/particles/waves within the brain that have genetically or memetically evolved to deal with those inputs. For instance we can relate how the pattern of ‘lit’ neurons in an fMRI scan spreads across the physical brain something like a flock of birds – and like a flock of birds, this flocking behaviour must be driven by something like a perceived ‘risk’ and its management. But this management of risk or dissonance we see in the neurons is perhaps getting us further away from the ‘hard problem’ rather than closer to it. Maybe the lit neurons in Dennett’s pandemonium are more simply just like the gouged channel that emerges when water flows down a hill many times (and again it seems a lot of ‘unnecessary’ data or deviation is created in both process). But the neurons don’t explain how the information contained in each neuron (whether lit or not) is consciously extracted and represented from within the manifold of lit neurons. We know the size of the manifold can relate to the depth of consciousness. So the whole manifold at any instant seems to represent at least a stratum of the united idea forming across time (e.g. the correct grammatical use of Xmas in a sentence). But how does the idea get united and represented? Dennett’s insight is that the representation doesn’t happen separately on some kind of movie screen in the head but that it happens then and there with the neuronal firings. So information unfolds with the ebb and flow of the physical neuronal patterns and non-physical brainwaves. But it doesn’t matter how much we analyse the physical structures, the non-physical information represented eludes our detectors. My suggestion is that we are studying only one side of the sticky substance called the mind/body (the physical brain) without clearly and explicitly recognising its other indirect side (consciousness). This is what particle physicists do. If we took the same approach we could search the direct to explicitly intimate the indirect rather than get all hung up about consciousness’s illusory nature and miss the vital clues in the physical that point to consciousness’s arrangements.

What: What would the other side of this “sticky substance” be? Would it be the same as any particle / indirect particle relationship? If that’s the case, there would have to be something special about the structure of a neuron that creates consciousness in brains as opposed to inanimate objects made of matter (because don’t they, theoretically, also have indirect particle mirrors?) Or are you theorizing that it’s similar to direct / indirect particles but another “type” of substance entirely, a unique substrate that gives rise to consciousness?

There is no other side to the sticky substance: This is the ‘materialistic monism’. The sticky substance itself has two sides – the direct side and indirect side: This is the ‘Yin and Yang dualism’ (no woo-woo intended) within the materialistic monism. And yes, consciousness would be an emergent arrangement (at a higher level of organisation & information) of the same particle / indirect particle relationship – just like we see in the Life Game talked about in many prior posts. The structure of the physical brain facilitates this higher order or arrangement of information just as much as the information within the brain directs its physical performance: The two grow up together in evolutionary time both genetically and memetically. There is no special substance required, just an emergent arrangement or dance between the basic direct and indirect. Nor is there is any subordination of the direct to the indirect or vice versa.

Another way to look at your second point - human consciousness is made explicit through language.

But you see, that is magic as far as I’m concerned! The universe is made of - well, I don’t know, whatever it’s made of - and these little bits and pieces organize, emerge, organize, emerge, and on and on, until you have life, cells, systems, people - and then the stuff of the universe (all those little inanimate bits and pieces) starts talking to itself, making information about itself explicit and pinging it back and forth across conscious creatures, and creating vast amounts of technology to increase and enhance this process. As I’ve said before, I think, from our subjective point of view, we’re often faced with the seeming absurdity of our existence. It’s like the most unlikely of fairy tales or science fiction novels.

Yes – I see where you are coming from. This is where we get back to the evolutionary or emergent mechanism that requires no external purpose to direct it. The purpose emerges from within its self-contained structure. At first this is a blind purpose, but then in human consciousness we see explicit but still self-contained and subjective purpose arise. But as we now know, those subjective purposes can be meaningful or rather meaningless. The difference is the “omni-jective” values of our species we use to direct those purposes or goals.

This is nothing special, but it can get us past the trap of thinking consciousness or self or even free will is illusory just because it is indirect.

Hmm… not sure about the free will one. I know you’ve given a definition of free will before, but it’s more about the consequences of our actions and not the causes. Is that what you mean here? Just curious because I sometimes try to envision what a non-causal, non-random model of free will could possibly look like, even theoretically - it’s like the world’s most impenetrable koan.

Yes – I agree that the free will one is the hardest to deal with. But if we get past the illusion of consciousness we may be a step in the right direction. My claim for a certain kind of free will is based on the narrowness of the idea of cause and effect over time (including future time). It is such a linear conception. There is no notion of feedback from effects to causes in the concept. If we did fully incorporate feedback into the notion then where would cause exactly end and effect exactly start? And if you merged yourself into the mechanism, where would your will exactly start or finish? So we don’t need to look for a non-causal model of free will at all. The premise is a false one in a self-organising, self-contained system. Free will emerges, or as Dennett says, “Freedom Evolves”. I see the same problem in our ethical systems: They lack a full appreciation of the feedback mechanism that obviates a starting point (e.g. in values or Standards) or an ending point (e.g. in outcomes) but rather accentuates the ‘dance’ and all the moves within that dance over time. The aim and reward of personal moral congruence emerges in the dance…

Wow - this has been one of the most challenging posts so far. Sorry if it is still a little unclear.

“That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” (The first article of the Virginia Declaration of Rights adopted unanimously by the Virginia Convention of Delegates on June 12, 1776)

My bet is that his “indirect” is based on virtual particles. Virtual particles cannot be observed or tested for, but they are a mathematical neccesity for some physics theories, and those theories have succesful predictions. Either way, what i wrote in the other topic about math is true here. Math is conceptual, concepts are thoughts, and thoughts are had by a thinking being. Michael Keans “indirect” should therefore always be considered synonymous with “consciousness”, even though he wont agree with that.

Yes - you’re right, my indirect is based on all indirect particles. But indirect particles can be fleetingly observed and can be tested for. And they can be incorporated into mathematical models as well. And yes - if you want to consider my indirect within all levels of what you call consciousness, then I will agree with that too! Where we part company is in your conception of panpsychism as opposed to a much more circumspect “panprotoexperientialism” which, like me, you would have seen in the Wiki article on panpsychism:

In philosophy, panpsychism is the view that all matter has a mental aspect, or, alternatively, all objects have a unified center of experience or point of view. Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Leibniz, Gustav Theodor Fechner, Friedrich Paulsen, Ernst Haeckel, Charles Strong, and partially William James are considered panpsychists.

Panexperientialism, as espoused by Alfred North Whitehead, is a less bold variation, which credits all entities with phenomenal consciousness but not with cognition, and therefore not necessarily with full-fledged minds.

Panprotoexperientialism is a more cautious variation still, which credits all entities with non-physical properties that are precursors to phenomenal consciousness (or phenomenal consciousness in a latent, undeveloped form) but not with cognition itself, or with conscious awareness.

So if you want to call me some kind of panprotoexperientialist, then I guess that would be ok - although I know nothing more of the term than what is defined here.

“That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” (The first article of the Virginia Declaration of Rights adopted unanimously by the Virginia Convention of Delegates on June 12, 1776)

I’ll get back to the rest of your post in a bit, I’m miserable sick today and need to try and sleep (I hate that they say try not to treat a fever these days - who can rest with a fever?)

Anyways, question for you, and this goes back to something I mentioned pages ago about how I feel that consciousness might need to have at least “three points”. Maybe more. So let me attempt to give two models that I think follow based on what I think you’re saying:

1. Consciousness emerges at some threshold level of complexity in total information flow. In the example of water flowing, for example, the water is not conscious, even though information is being exchanged between the direct and indirect. So in this model, if we could make that information more complex to the trillionth power or some such thing, we could create consciousness.

I get the feeling from this that you see consciousness as a stand-alone thing. Higher order consciousness cannot arise in and of itself. It needs to work in a partnership with evolving matter to achieve anything. So the mechanism for consciousness to achieve its best is currently through brains (and vice versa) - but maybe I don’t get what you really mean here.

2. Consciousness is the cross-fire between sources of information. Again, with water, we can have information being pinged back and forth between direct / indirect, but no consciousness. So in this example I imagine there needs to be at least one more point of reference, such as a sense of “self” with which to contrast this information.

Not sure what you mean. All the information the mind/body picks up is channelled by the physical brain’s structure. So I see the body & its environment moving thru time as all that is needed for consciousness to be. But take away either of these factors and consciousness cannot be.

V.S. Ramachandran has talked about our brains potentially creating a sense of self by (if I remember correctly) setting up a stable internal map, perhaps based on the body, and contrasting incoming information with this map. Of course, that still leaves the question, how does the information in that model become conscious? Perhaps it requires a combination - you have special machinery in the brain, maybe like what is described by Ramachandran, that relays information, and then running through (or across? as a counterpoint to?) this information you have another source, such as direct / indirect particles communicating - and the tension, vibration, asymmetry or movement here is consciousness. In other words, it can’t be one asymmetry or comparison - it needs to be a comparison of a comparison.

Ok - I think I know what you’re getting at. Firstly consciousness needs a ‘subconscious transfer’ from direct brain mechanisms to make the information explicit in the indirect ‘mind’. But secondly consciousness is a reflection - a consciousness of something. So there can be no consciousness of something until there is a something (thus the need for an environment for consciousness to be possible. There is no possibility of a consciousness that is conscious of nothing but itself). Likewise at a higher order, emergent self-consciousness requires a ‘self’ first (I hope you see the implicit feedback loops here). Likewise moral responsibility - there can be no moral responsibility until we have measured, valued and acted. Likewise there can be no free will until we have measured, valued and acted (with fallible intent).

“That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” (The first article of the Virginia Declaration of Rights adopted unanimously by the Virginia Convention of Delegates on June 12, 1776)

Thanks Michael. I’ll try to explain more later on, but if I had to summarize, I think what I’m essentially asking is “What’s so special about a brain that can create consciousness?” In other examples of direct and indirect particle communication, we don’t see it - so if we use this model then there must be something unique to the brain (or a similar machine, if we could create it) that generates consciousness using this type of information. Is it sheer volume of information? The way it’s patterned? Etc.

ok - another really tough question. I hope others are reading your questions and thinking about answers because I think it would be really helpful. Firstly, I get your point - all our machines exploit the interactions of gravity, electromagnetism or the strong nuclear force but what machines exploit life or consciousness if these are other unique but higher-order “interactions”? Maybe we are just getting started (e.g. biological solutions to oil spills, etc., but even here they seem the equivalent of the earliest watermills or something). Life & brains are complex, so both the volume of data & how it is structured to arrive at quickly accessible ‘information’ is vital. Dennett’s pandemonium model is fascinating. It suggests ‘thinking’ kind of evolves or emerges in super quick time, as a result of a kind of competition between mind/body ‘subroutines’ or ‘demons’. In terms of how the brain works, Eucaryote’s earlier link he may have posted just before your arrival was also excellent:

If you go back to even earlier posts you will see that I also see the brain’s structures for dealing with time in the prefrontal lobes as a key aspect of higher, self-aware consciousness (or what makes the human brain so special).

I’ve heard you use the term “hall of mirrors” before - this is sort of how I picture consciousness. Perhaps we start off with incoming information between direct / indirect that is contrasted against machinery in the brain that creates our “sense of self”, and from here we get basic qualia. Then, perhaps, we have another contrasting mechanism that creates awareness of this qualia (i.e., a lizard can probably experience pain to a degree but not think “Ow, that hurt!”) and so on up through higher levels of thought.

Pinker’s “How the Brain Works” & Dennett’s books are excellent in this regard…

“That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” (The first article of the Virginia Declaration of Rights adopted unanimously by the Virginia Convention of Delegates on June 12, 1776)

Yes - before I asked you if there was any “special substance” you think is involved in consciousness, and you said no, you’re proposing direct / indirect particles. Since these particles are present in other, non-conscious parts of the world, I think it follows there must be something within the brain that organizes these particles in a unique way, a way that would give rise to consciousness. You said these particle interactions may be present in the flow of water, for example - yet water isn’t conscious. So, if consciousness isn’t inherent in direct / indirect particle communication itself, then what exactly does the brain do with these particles that creates consciousness?

I think it’s kinda simple - the brain organises the particles into an information system (just as much as the mind organises real particles into its survival machine).

Hmmm… I guess I just feel like I’m missing a step here. I’m sorry, I don’t know physics, but with my limited knowledge let me try to explain as best I can. What I’m getting so far is:

1. Indirect / direct particles relay information in the world - but are not in and of themselves conscious

2. When you have lots and lots of these interactions, structured in a certain way, then they are conscious

It seems like that leaves out a step. If subjectivity isn’t inherent in the particle interactions, and subjectivity isn’t inherent in complex information processing (i.e., a computer) then where does it come into play? Again, one thought I have here is that the brain creates a sort of sounding board in the form a “self”, a contrast or measuring stick for incoming information. Perhaps consciousness arises when you have not just one type of particle interaction, but one interaction contrasted against another. Or, another might be the contrast or asymmetry in time in the prefrontal lobes, as you suggested.

It’s like the difference between data and information I talked about in my last post a few moments ago in the other thread “A Universe from Nothing ... BS” started by srrr. The indirect particles don’t start off as information - they just start off as random data points in the quantum fluctuations of so-called “nothingness”. But then structures like brains emerge that organise those data points into information. That is, the information emerges in the structures and the structures emerge in the information. You’ve gotta keep thinking recursively instead of linearly! Everything is related to everything else! Everything in nature is fractal and self-organising! Common computers do not focus on being emergent as yet so they can’t get explicitly involved in the emergent mechanisms as yet.

Throwing out an entirely different topic here, on the topic of emergence - have you ever heard of quantum pseudo-telepathy? A friend with an interest in such things passed this idea along and I see that it merits its own Wiki article - is this for real or is it dubious? If this is a real thing I think it’s interesting in terms of even higher forms of emergence, beyond the single person level. I.e., are we developing specific mechanisms that help us band together and work as a large human team, above and beyond the single person level? Or is this a bunch of hooey?

No idea! But I’ve now read the article - thank you.

“That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” (The first article of the Virginia Declaration of Rights adopted unanimously by the Virginia Convention of Delegates on June 12, 1776)

I think I see what you mean. Maybe in a more “scientific” way, I’m looking for a sort of dualism - the Good Fairy waving her wand over Pinocchio and making him a real boy… Not that extreme, of course, but my intuition keeps pulling me towards the idea that some sort of “otherness”, in the form of a wildly complex or different scientific process, would have to enter the picture. I think you’re saying this doesn’t need to be the case! (I don’t entirely rule it out, either, but I can see that it doesn’t have to be.)

Yeah - I don’t want to seem like I’ve got all the answers either. Maybe somewhere between original infinite nothingness and our Big Bang all sorts of things happened. Maybe the exact nature of the Big Bang was the result of some kind of artificial and natural selection - just as everything in our world seems to be today. Maybe a kind of Uber-species contributed to the beginning of our universe. And maybe our species will evolve into something comparable and achieve similar things. Who knows? So if you want some skyhooks, it’s still possible, but ultimately not necessary because something natural had to give rise to the very first Uber-species. So Occam’s razor suggests it is not worth worrying about…

“That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” (The first article of the Virginia Declaration of Rights adopted unanimously by the Virginia Convention of Delegates on June 12, 1776)